A.R.: Beyond the Universe

It is a poor attempt at getting some sleep after he wakes up from the dream. Sleep came hard that night, accompanied by a strange dream. The only thing he remembers from the dream is the boy, who had blue eyes that kept looking at him. At that briefest of moments, when their gazes met, he felt as though he had a million volts of electricity flowing through him, starting in his head and working its way throughout his entire body. He could sense everything, everywhere, from all points in space. Images race through his mind of planets, people, things that only exist in nightmares, all coming at once. It feels like his head will explode, as though it had been squeezed empty and then filled way beyond its capacity, ready to burst at a moment’s notice like an over-filled balloon.

When he does sleep, he is haunted by thoughts, colors, and places that he has never imagined. There are distant sounds in the back of his mind unlike any he had ever heard. And it is not just the sounds that refuse to go away. There are the blurry images of bright colors, things moving that he cannot understand.

Alex wakes up, surprised by how good he feels, considering how much trouble he had going to sleep that night. His energy levels are high, and he is in a strangely good mood. He is surprised that he does not feel drowsy or tired, despite the restlessness he had just experienced.

Alex takes care of his usual morning business that morning and leaves his house to go to work. The dream is now a distant memory, still there somewhere in the back of his mind. It is like a small candle in a far, distant window, flickering in a light breeze. But faint dream has left its mark on him.

His drive into the office seems excruciatingly slow. Normally, his mind is on the upcoming day’s schedule. Once he leaves the house on his way into work, he always tries to shift gears and concentrate on what he is supposed to accomplish that day, but not today. Now his thoughts are racing as if his mind has shifted into overdrive. His mind seems to want to try and solve every unanswered question that it has ever pondered on.

A note about driving a car while in morning rush hour traffic: it is far better to keep your mind on traffic than to be daydreaming. Driving through a red light increases your chances of getting into an accident or receiving a traffic ticket. Luck was with Alex that morning as neither occurred.

When he gets to the office, Alex finds it odd that he cannot remember any details of his drive into the office. He settles into his office chair, a high-back version. He had chosen that chair because it had been designed for people with lower back problems and he has a lower back that tends to not behave itself. The chair had been much too expensive to get in leather, so he had decided to get the one he could afford: cloth covered. And besides, the cloth-covered chair does what he needs it to do; it keeps his lower spine from getting out of alignment creating a wave of pain down the outside of his right leg causing him to regret trying to stand up. When that happens, he must rely on the walking stick that he always keeps close.

The pain in his lower back is caused by a piece of bone sticking out of one of his lower vertebrae, pinching the sciatic nerve (of which he often refers to it as a psychotic nerve). All it takes to make the pain flare up is a bend or turn the wrong way at the wrong time, and he finds it difficult at best to walk without a limp, if he can walk at all.

The more he sits there trying to concentrate on what he is supposed to be doing, the more he cannot stop thinking about answers to questions he had never solved, or even heard of. He tries to concentrate on the work at hand, but his mind seems to want to operate all on its own.

His job consists of sitting in front of a computer, drawing lines, arcs, points, and text. He uses CAD (computer aided drafting) to create drawings and details for architects and engineers. He is good using the program. 30 years of experience and a love for detail shows in his work. But he never seems to want to do anything else. Perhaps if he had really wanted, he could have been an architect, the person in charge, or an engineer or project manager. But that is not what he wants to do. “Let someone else put up with all the paperwork, the meetings, the hassle of dealing with people. Just give me a list of stuff to do to keep me busy” is pretty much his motto at work.

He has never really felt comfortable about being around people. He has his job and tends to stay to himself most of the time. That is probably why he likes using CAD so much. Someone can give him a list of things to do, and he, for the most part, can be left alone to do his work. Of course, there are times when he has to ask questions to the person in charge of the project, but those are a necessity in order to get the work done. And that is the reason that he is here--to do the work assigned to him. While at the office, nothing else but finishing the work exists. If something gets in his way of completing his assigned tasks, he feels threatened or gets irritated.

Over the years, he has mastered over a dozen versions of CAD programs, each with a list of its commands and quirks. But they all do the same thing, and all he must do is figure out what commands to use. If the CAD program is too slow or cumbersome, he writes his own commands to speed things up by creating shortcuts. That, for some reason, has always come easy because he really does love doing the stuff. No matter what assignment they give him, no matter how much or how tight the deadline, he loves it. The more tedious it is the better.

But on this day his mind is elsewhere. He tries to finish the wall detail he needs to complete. His thoughts are not on what he sees on the computer screen. Instead, they are far away, in a place that does not exist. The memories of his dream are beginning to come back and haunt him.

As usual, he is far ahead of his scheduled workload, in fact, several weeks’ worth. He takes a minute and hops on the Internet to do a quick search for vivid dreams. He hopes to find something about why he has been having so much trouble keeping that dream out of his head.

“There are how many websites?” he asks himself. He scans the first page of brief, descriptive text for each website. A waste of time, he thinks. “This’ll never get me anywhere—too many to look at. Got to get back to work.”

For some reason, just taking a minute to at least try to do something about the dream seems to help. After that, he finds it easier to concentrate on drawing the detail, then another detail, and then another. It is not long before the computer screen is full of details. He looks over them to see if everything looks correct. He looks at what is drawn, the notes and dimensions, and is satisfied with the work. Then it is on to the next drawing.

“Alex, you got to learn to slow down”, one of the architects says, as he walks by. “We’ve all been watching you this morning. We’ve seen you on a good day tear out drawings. But this morning, you’re moving so fast that none of us can follow what you’re doing. What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing,” Alex replies. “You just caught me on a good day, I guess.”

He glances at his watch and is surprised to see that lunchtime has come already. He scans over the drawings he had worked on that morning and is pleased with what he has accomplished. Now it is time to go home, feed the dog, take him for a walk, eat lunch, and relax a little by watching some TV. Living only a short drive from the office, so close to work, has its advantages. It gives him plenty of time to go home and take care of lunch business (the dog and his lunch) without worrying about the time. There are many days when he has extra time on his hands after finishing with lunch. On those days, he takes a short nap if he wishes.

This is one of those days. After eating lunch, he starts to feel a little tired, more than usual. When he feels the need to get a little extra sleep after lunch, he finds something on TV he is familiar with. Sometimes it is the voice of a familiar news broadcaster, sometimes an old movie. It does not matter what is on, just hearing the soft sounds of something always helps him to drift off. After a quick check to see what is on, he sets the tuner to the local noon news, curls up in his leather recliner, draws the soft afghan over his head to block out the light, and dozes off to sleep.

Once again, he finds himself floating in the dark reaches of space. He looks around to get his bearings. But this time something is different. This time there is no silver cord. Not knowing what to do next, the first thing is to see if, as before, he can make himself move. He stretches out his arms over his head. “Look, Ma, I’m Superman!” he says to himself with a grin. All he needs now is a cape. But nothing happens. The stars do not move or get blurry as before. “OK, now what?” he wonders. He tries several positions, moving his hands, arms, or legs in different configurations. Nothing.

Remembering the long, silvery cord, he looks for it again, but it is not there. Just big, empty space with distant, clear stars sparkling like little diamonds.

Then he sees the familiar colors of the afghan over his face and realizes he had dozed off and gone to sleep. He has accomplished what he needed to do: to get a little more rest. He looks at the clock on the wall and is relieved to see that the nap lasted only 10 minutes. Feeling refreshed, he gets up, slips on his shoes, pats the dog on the head, grabs the car keys and his jacket, and heads out the door.

The rest of the workday passes quickly, unusually fast. By the time five o’clock rolls around, he has gotten more done than he is used to doing. He is pleased with the work, not only because he had gotten more done than was scheduled for that day, but also because he had the time to check each drawing.

He is pleased but also a little concerned. All these years, he knew what he could do: look at a list of details or hand-drawn sketches and tell you within a couple of minutes how long each would take to draw. Then to make himself look good (or to allow a little extra time if something went wrong), he would always add 10% extra to the estimated time. This, however, was different. He had completed the work in much less time than he normally would take.

He had always heard from his superiors that he was fast, but not this fast.

Pleased but confused with the amount of work successfully accomplished that day, he again picks up his jacket and car keys. He looks around to see if there is anything left on his desk to take home, and heads out the door.

As is his usual routine on his drive home, he thinks about tomorrow’s workload. Then his thoughts turn to dinner for that evening. Living without anyone else in the house (other than the dog) is a relief for him. He likes being at home where there are no pressures that come from having other people around. Other than doing CAD work and the dog, he has several other “loves” in his life: his hobbies. They include making stained glass pieces (lamps, pictures, wall hangings), growing bonsai trees, and building wooden model ships.

He likes doing the stained glass because he loves getting something accomplished in a relatively short period of time (anywhere from a couple of evenings to a few months of evenings). There is a special satisfaction at seeing a finished piece of stained glass when the sun shines through it. It is then that the bright and vivid colors of the glass seem to come to life; giving him a sense that maybe he has just done something right.

Building model ships gives him a different type of satisfaction. The little model ships, with their tall masts, hand-sewn sails, and wooden planked hulls and decks are at best difficult to produce. But it allows him to make use of the inherent patience that is a part of him. Taking up to several years to complete, each model gives him something long-range on which to concentrate. Each model ship is based on a real ship from the past and made just as the real thing had been made. First, the individual ribs are made for the hull. Each rib is held vertically in place by a jig that he makes just for that model. The jig holds each rib vertically straight while keeping them in-line, so the planks can be applied. Then individual planks, cut with a miniature table saw from 1/8” thick boards of hardwood, are attached to the outside of the set of ribs. After planking the outside of the model’s hull, he sets his talents on doing the same planking job on the inside of the ribs. Then he makes and attaches the beams on which the planking for the ship’s deck is mounted. After that, he works on everything that goes on the deck (small barrels, deck houses, ship’s wheel, compass, ship’s bell, furniture, etc.). Then it is time to make and attach the masts and the sails. The final step is to do the rigging that helps support and keep vertical the tall masts. Those strings vary in both size and color. Each has its own purpose--some to support the masts, some attach to the sails, and some for holding the sails themselves. Tying the thousands of knots for all those miniature ropes is especially pleasing for him. For some reason that he has never quite figured out, spending hundreds of hours tying knots has never bothered him. He enjoys it. It gives him a sense of purpose and calm. It also gives him satisfaction when others say things like, “I could never do that,” or when they compliment him on the complexity of one of his ships.

His third hobby has even longer-range goals. That hobby consists of growing miniature trees, called bonsai. These little trees are grown, groomed, and trimmed to look exactly like real, full sized trees, but in miniature. It is easy for him to imagine seeing a full-sized maple tree or a pine tree sitting on a table, living in a dish maybe an inch tall. Making a small, living tree look like a large tree gives him a different sense of satisfaction. Maybe it is because of his patience, maybe is creating something small, maybe it is the detail, or maybe all of it. Why he spends all this time on the little trees does not matter; it’s just something else he loves to do.

Another pleasure comes from cooking. Since he lives alone, he can cook whatever he wishes. Fortunately for him, eating the same thing all week for dinner is not a problem, but he does like a little variety. He learned a long time ago to spend Sunday afternoon cooking for the week. He plans simpler meals for lunches and more elaborate meals for dinners. Dinners usually consist of two different main courses, which he alternates each evening.

On his way home that evening, he knows dinner is already made and ready to reheat—all he has to do is put the leftovers on a plate and heat it in the microwave. He just must remember which night it is and what he had last night. The night before, he had vegetable beef soup with buttermilk biscuits. That means tonight’s meal is meat loaf, seasoned green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, and flaky, buttery dinner rolls. His mouth is watering already. He had gotten the meatloaf recipe from his brother, and when it’s made right, produces a very tasty and satisfying dinner.

As Alex pulls into his driveway at home, he can hear the familiar barking of his dog, MacGuyver, and it puts a big smile on his face. Of all the things in this world he has or owns, that little Shetland sheepdog has his heart. He would rather hear the barks, roughs, and growls from that dog than any other sound. The feeling he gets from looking into the little dog’s big, brown eyes always filled him with a sense of peace and calm. And it always makes him smile.

Once home and parked in the driveway, Alex gets out of the car and goes to the mailbox to see if there is any mail. He finds several catalogs, including one for kitchen gadgets, one for men’s shoes, and one for collectibles. There are a few bills and a letter from the homeowner’s association. He opens the letter to find what he had anticipated--a rejection letter preventing him from putting a storage shed in his backyard. His house did not have a garage or storage shed. Alex is confused as to why the association does not allow him to have a place to securely store his lawn mower, gas can, and other lawn equipment. He has explained that he needs a place to keep everything for outdoor use. “I guess they have nothing better to do with their time than to play God with their little world,” he thinks as he tears up the letter and heads for the front door.

As is always the case, MacGuyver is standing there when Alex unlocks and opens the front door. The dog’s bushy tail swishes back and forth quickly. He is panting hard with excitement and lets out a couple of short barks. Alex pats the dog on the head and walks through the house to the sliding glass door leading to the back yard. When Alex bought the house several years ago, he had installed vertical blinds on the inside of the sliding door. This was done partially to provide privacy and partially to block the bright parking lot lights in the shopping center across the road from coming into the house at night, but mostly to keep out the hot afternoon sun. Without those blinds, the house gets a little too warm for MacGuyver and his thick, beautiful coat of sable, white, and black.

MacGuyver also likes to look out into the back yard. Knowing this, Alex had cut the bottoms off the first 8 vertical blinds about 16 inches from the floor. This way, he could keep the blinds closed while MacGuyver could still look out into the backyard and keep watch on his domain.

Alex can tell from the tone of the dog’s barking what the dog has seen. He knows MacGuyver will not eat until he is able to chase the birds away from the backyard. Alex slides open the back door and steps to the side. The next thing he sees is a brown blur rushing past him as the dog races out the door and into the yard. Barking loudly and furiously, he is doing his best to chase every bird from his domain. The little dog darts from place to place, always looking up, barking at everything that moves until not a single bird remains in the trees or the backyard. Then he stops to urinate and trots back into the house, breathing heavily. Alex can tell the dog is satisfied with himself after completing his mission. This makes Alex feel good because the little dog is getting up in years. This year the dog will be 15. Alex is just glad that MacGuyver can still act like he does.

It is easy to tell what the next thing on the dog’s agenda is: Food! Dinner!

MacGuyver wastes no time walking to his food bowl in the kitchen impatiently starts pacing back and forth, all the while staring at his master to let him know in no uncertain terms that it is dinnertime.

Alex opens the kitchen pantry door, pulls out the airtight container of the dog’s dry food, opens the lid and scoops out the dog’s dinner. Alex picks up the bowl from the floor and fills the bowl with the dry food. The he smiles at the dog and asks MacGuyver, “Are you ready for some supper?” There almost seems to be a grin on the little dog’s face as they play the same game they have performed for many years now. MacGuyver wags his bushy tail, gives two quick barks, paces quickly, and then nudge his nose on Alex’s leg. Alex, grinning big, sets the bowl down on the floor and gets out of the way. The one thing that Alex knows about this little dog is: DO NOT GET BETWEEN HIM AND HIS FOOD! As usual, the dog consumes his dinner with enthusiasm. It takes about a minute for the food to disappear. The dog looks up with a satisfied look in his eyes and nudges Alex’s leg again--the sign for more food. “Hold on, my turn,” Alex tells the dog.

Alex opens the fridge, gets out the leftovers, opens each container, and fills his plate with what he calls home cooking. While the dinner is heating in the microwave, he fills a glass with iced tea from the fridge and adds another half measure of dog food to the dog’s food bowl. He sets the food bowl back on the floor, grabs his hot dinner, and heads for the living room. He settles into the recliner, reaches for the TV remote, and finds the local evening news.

Alex listens to the TV while eating dinner. When he finishes eating, he begins to relax and listen to the weather forecast for the next week. As Alex glances down, he sees the dog sitting and staring at him intently. MacGuyver has finally gotten his master’s attention. It is time to go for a walk. Alex smiles, gets up, puts the dishes to the kitchen sink, goes to the front door, and grabs the leash hanging on the wall beside the door. He bends down, snaps the leash onto the dog’s collar, and the two head out the door for a long evening’s walk.

After their walk, the two head home again, finally ready to relax for the evening. With dinner eaten and having gone on their walk, the dog curls up beside the recliner holding his master and quickly dozes off for an evening nap. As the low sounds of the national news emanate from the TV, Alex decides that his little companion has the right idea. Stretched out in his recliner, he turns on his side and curls up to get comfortable. He drags the familiar afghan over his head and quickly falls asleep.

Chapter 3 – Unexpected Visitors

Alex once again finds himself floating in space. He’s not sure, but he thinks that it is the same place where he had found himself when he had napped earlier in the day. He is not an astronomer, but in his opinion, the stars seem to be in the same position. This time, he decides to take a good look around. There is no Earth, no planets, nothing but the distant points of little sparkling lights he assumes are stars.

By now he has become accustomed to floating out in space. It is no longer a problem figuring out that he is there, not breathing and not cold. He accepts the fact that he is in what appears to be a dream about being in space. The only thing that still confuses him is why he is having the same dream once again. It’s not normal for him.

After taking a quick look around, he tries to see if he can go anywhere. He feels kind of silly just floating there, doing nothing. He tries once again to imagine the infinite string in front of him, but no string appears. He tries raising his arms again to see if that will get him moving like he did in the earlier dream. Nope, nothing.

Looking around, he finds the brightest star in the black background. Curious, he wonders what it is. Is it a star, a planet (with people), or maybe an entire galaxy? Without any warning, the little star suddenly grows into a swirling mass of little bright stars.

“Did I just move, or did it?” he wonders. He looks around to find that the patterns of stars surrounding him have changed. He turns to study the swirling stars. The more he looks, the more he sees. Each star, of which there seem to be millions if not billions, contains millions of infinitely smaller white stars. No, not all white. Some he can now see are yellow. The more he concentrates on a single star, the more colors he begins to see in the stars--various shades of red, blue, green, purple, and yellow. In each little star are countless spaces, colors, and shapes, all moving. As he continues to stare at them, the smaller stars began to collect together, forming even more complex shapes.

He is beginning to become aware of all that he is seeing. After experimenting, he finds that, as he studies the individual stars in the swirling mass, he can keep track of every star that he sees and what each contains, no matter how many he concentrates on.

Getting curious, he begins to wonder. “Let’s try this again,” he decides and looks around. He finds another bright star in the sky and concentrates on it. As before, the little star changes almost instantaneously, growing into another swirling mass of bright, little stars. This time, the center is not as populated with stars as the other. He watches intently as the swirling mass begins to grow, increasing in diameter. Eventually, the little stars on the outermost rim spins away. Not long after, the rest of the little stars follow suit, leaving nothing but empty space.

No, not empty. Something is there, where the center of the swirling mass was. Though he does not see anything, he senses that there is something there. He is tempted to concentrate on that point in space and find out what it is; yet something inside of him warns him off. It feels like someone has put a “DO NOT TOUCH” sign in his head. Feeling that maybe he ought to leave well enough alone, he looks out again to see what else he can find.

He is surprised to find that, in his mind, he is not only keeping track of all those stars in the swirling mass in front of him, but also the first mass of stars he looked at, even though it is a great distance from him. From photos he had seen taken from deep-space telescopes, he determines that he is looking at spiral galaxies. Each star is another galaxy containing millions or even billions of solar systems.

“So, the little stars I thought were just stars turned out to be a lot more,” he thinks to himself.

It does not dawn on him that it is impossible for a man to be able to see one of these galaxies with his own eyes the way that he is doing now, floating in space. However, since this is all a dream, anything is possible. How else can he explain what he is seeing? “If this is a dream and I can move around like this, I wonder what else I can find,” he thinks to himself.

Locating yet another bright star in the blackness, he concentrates on it and finds it is made of multicolored clouds. As he looks closer, he notices the clouds are moving and changing shapes. There are only a few little white stars (more galaxies?) here. “Wait…there’s one that wasn’t. Where did it come from?” he wonders. Then another star appears, moving away from the clouds. “The clouds--they are coming from the clouds. Is this where they come from?” He tries to concentrate on one of the clouds. He concentrates to see what is in there and where the stars are coming from. This time nothing happens. No visions, no sights, nothing.

He continues to watch the number of little stars increase in number and then watches them as they speed away into the depths of space. He concentrates on one of them as it whizzes past him to see if it also consists of even smaller stars. No, there is nothing in there except bright light.

He continues with his sightseeing. Before very long, he has visited several hundred of these stars or galaxies. “It seems that no two are alike, just like snowflakes,” he thinks.

Off in the distance, he notices something different. It is an area completely blank and void of anything. No stars, nothing. At the edge of the blacked-out area are several clusters of stars. An almost infinite variety of sights and sounds suddenly bombard him as he concentrates on them. Then, without any warning, the stars disappear as if they had been painted black to blend in with the background or were suddenly taken away. And the moment the stars vanish, all the sounds he had been hearing in his head coming from that area of space stop, but not before receiving a feeling of sheer terror.

The colors of the afghan are coming back into focus. Alex is waking up from his dream. He looks at the clock on the wall to see that about ten minutes have passed since he had stretched out to take his nap.

Now he is starting to wonder what is going on. Why had he suddenly started to dream of being in space? And not just once but three times in a row? And, unlike other dreams, these were starting to feel all too real.

He gets up from the recliner, goes to his computer, and starts searching the Internet for clues about dreams.

The first thing he wants to find out is if galaxies really do look like what he had seen in his dream. He quickly finds several websites with actual pictures of galaxies taken by deep-space telescopes. They all look familiar, but none looked exactly like what he had just seen in his dream.

“OK, I am dreaming about being in space. I wonder why. If it was a dream, maybe I can find out what it means. They say that dreams are what the subconscious uses to solve problems,” he says to MacGuyver, who seems to be studying his master intently. “I need to find out what the dreams mean and why I am having several about the same thing.”

He types in “dreams” in the search box. Too many websites; he should have known better. He fine-tunes the search words to “dreams about space.” After looking at several screens of websites, he starts another search. This time he types in “dreams about space travel.”

Nothing.

Then he tries “disappearing stars” in the search box.

He sees a website that catches his attention. It describes, to a point, a lot of what he had experienced in his dreams. It tells of an ancient prophecy about a person who will become a messenger from the gods. The messenger will act as a link between them and man. This messenger will also prove to be the deciding factor in a war that is coming. The author, it seems, is not even sure where or when the prophecy came from.

Curious, Alex searches the website and finds a contact link. He selects it and his e-mail opens. He looks at the address and sees nothing unusual. He types in a subject of “need more information.” In the body of the e-mail, he asks the receiver of the e-mail to contact him because he is “curious about the prophecy.” He hits the send button.